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id Software: "Surprised And Saddened" By DNF Failure

Duke Nukem Forever is no more and for many, it wasn't all that difficult to believe. But id Software, developer of legendary franchises like Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake, really thought it might be a cruel joke.

According to Videogamer, id's director of business development Steve Nix talked about how sad it was to see the DNF team at 3D Realms disappear, and how he had hoped it was nothing more than a rumor. Last month, the team in question was laid off "due to a lack of funding," marking an end to the 11-year saga that surrounded the game that may have spawned the term, "vaporware." In response to this, Nix said:

"For me it was personally sad. I know a lot of people at the studio (id) were really surprised and saddened for sure. We had originally moved to Dallas because Apogee, who morphed into 3D Realms, was our original publisher. So id might not even be in Dallas and a lot of us wouldn’t even be working in the games industry if it wasn’t for Apogee and 3D Realms. So I know for me personally I thought it was a joke when I heard the other day. So definitely, extremely saddened and surprising that those guys aren’t there and we may never see the game we were all looking forward to."

The only good thing that may come out of this - as far as ex-3D Realms members are concerned - is that id is currently hiring, and Nix didn't rule out the obvious possibility... "There are some really talented guys in there so it very well could happen that some of them end up at id," he said. Well, let's just hope that if this does happen, those people will finally have the pleasure of working on a game that eventually gets produced.

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Legacy Comment System (17 posts)

ID could benefit from some new blood, I haven't found their games enticing since Doom 2.

As for vaporware, it's been around since at least the 80's. There was a great tendancy for companies to announce their latest package before it was complete, often in an attempt to blunt the launch of a competitor's product. There have been times when vaporware actually condensed into real software, although it often lacked some key features which remained vaporware until much later. Microsoft was good at this particular practice - which is why so many people are in the habit of waiting until at least the first Service Pack before updating a new Windows or Office product.

I went to school with Adriane Carmack, one of the artist of id and cousin to John Carmack. Although I find him to be a very talented artist, I just never could get into their games. I got a little intoxicated one time while trying to play a fps and got the sensation I was steering the background into the center of fire and have never been able to shake that feeling.

It's a shame too, on my part, because I do think there is a lot of good talent working on fps's.Last edited by tes37 on 6/15/2009 3:58:01 PM

I still say there was never any game. Maybe there was supposed to be at one time and it never materialized, or the joke got so big they eventually tried to put something together, but I call shenanigans. The "screenshots" were BS and that video was probably a cobbled together bit of hype on an old engine to keep the gag going.Last edited by WorldEndsWithMe on 6/15/2009 5:56:43 PM

I recently had the pleasure to talk with one of the ex-3D Realms members. He did say that id was hiring and that he had an interview lined up with them. He said he was also looking into a position with Sony to work on The Agency. Here's hoping they all do ok.